It has become comparatively easy for the image read by a scanner to be image-processed by a computer owing to the advancement of the computer technique in the last few years. Further, it has been discussed to use a silver halide photographic material for responding to a demand for the increase in high picture quality of the hard copy of an image, and image formation by a scanning exposure system has been conducted.
As is seen in recent years, for example, in post cards made by Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., a demand for obtaining a photographic image and letters on the same print has increased. Further, as the synthesis of an image with letters has become easy due to the advancement of the computer technique as described above, a demand for outputting it as a hard copy goes on increasing.
As an image formation system by known scanning exposure system, a method of applying scanning exposure using a light emitting diode as a light source to a photographic material has been disclosed in JP-B-62-21305 (the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined Japanese patent publication"). A method of scanning exposure of a high silver chloride content photographic material by a laser beam is disclosed in JP-A-62-35352 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"). A method of scanning exposure using a second harmonic obtained by a semiconductor laser and an SHG element as a light source is disclosed in JP-A-63-18346. Further, the reduction of a total image formation time has been achieved using high silver chloride content silver halide in a photographic material as disclosed in WO 87/04534.
The present inventors have outputted the image plane of an image coexisting with letters on a color photographic paper by scanning exposure based upon these methods disclosed in the above patents, but it was found that if the density of black letters is made to coincide with that of surface exposure, a problem arose such that the periphery of letters blurred and imaging capability of letters was inferior.